Sunflowers? Nope. Actually, they’re silicon oxide nanowires grown in gallium and gold catalysts — and they’re only several microns in length. The pic, by Chinese University of Hong Kong professor S.K. Hark, is part of the Materials Research Society’s semi-annual party of the most artistic and eye catching images found during the study of nanomaterials. Some choice picks after the jump.
Zinc oxide nanoneedles, colorized to resemble a traditional Chinese mountain painting.
Potassium niobium oxide deposited onto a silicon surface and photographed through an optical microscope.
Check out Wired for the rest of the photos. [Wired]
The Underwater Disco Light Show is a small waterproof contraption that you chuck in the tub for a full-on psychedelic bath-time experience—although, if you want really full-on, it might help to get the hallucinogens in before you strip off your clothes and your dignity and jump in. Turn it on, and LED lights in four colors whoosh around, and there’s a little button to change the pattern, as well as a weight underneath so that it doesn’t upend itself. Thomas and Guy-Man of Daft Punk should put these $15 gizmos on their Christmas wish-lists now. [
Boats are pretty sweet, as are planes. But when you combine the two? You get a flying boat, my friends, and that just takes shit to the next level. Doi Malingri realized this basic fact, which is why he decided to stick a hang glider and a big engine on the back of a dinghy, creating one of the sweetest and most dangerous-looking ways to travel around. Sure, it costs a ridiculous $32,300 for something that looks like you could cobble it together in your garage in a weekend for a few hundred, but who has time for garage projects when you could be flying over the waves?
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